Masochistic Me
by Randirogue
Summary: A disturbing tale in which Death tries to destroy what remains of Remy’s psyche by exploiting Remy’s penchant for guilt and self-punishment. Will he succeed or will Remy reconcile the atrocities he has committed and overcome Death’s corruption?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I'm quite certain you all know who actually owns these characters.

**Summary:** A disturbing tale in which Death tries to destroy what remains of Remy's psyche by exploiting Remy's penchant for guilt and self-punishment. Will he succeed or will Remy reconcile the atrocities he has committed and overcome Death's corruption?

**WARNING: **Though the content will never be too directly explicit, this story deals with darker elements and will attempt to explore the motivations behind self-destructive behavior in a mature and serious manner. This story is absolutely not intended for a casual good time.

**Author's Note:** I don't know how long this will go on. I've got ideas, of course, tons of them, enough to creep this towards quite a novel. They are always pounding the walls of my noggin' after all. For those who have waited so patiently for updates to my other fics under this and my alternate penname, please forgive the continuing delay. I'll get to them eventually. Maybe I'll get lucky and you will enjoy this or even the eventual traditional publishing of one of my original stories or scripts in the interim.

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**Chapter One  
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Sounded a lot like a pot of crawfish dumped on a table when her slack flesh impacted the hardwood floor. The smooth expanse of interlocked planks that made up the floor of the bulk of the basement studio shone with the polish of _her_ blood and _his_ love and the buffing their feet had given it when they had slid and kicked against it. Before he was done with her, he expected to have plied the full wealth of his knowledge and capabilities upon her so giving body. He would employ every trick he'd had up his sleeve, every slippery twist of his tongue, and most especially every tool tucked into his coat and pants for the duration of his unfortunately exhaustible agility and stamina.

Two hours, he'd lasted this time. Two hours, non-stop. He'd do better next time.

It was only fair trade, after all; since she'd come to him, she pestered him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And _she_ never tired of it.

He had a lot of practice ahead of him to match her level of torture.

He shut the door behind him. Shut out her dry, sticky sobs. Shut back her persistent magnolia and low-tide stench. But he couldn't shut off the tap she'd stabbed in his back.

Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week.

He didn't bother locking it before he strode off into the oil slick night. Why bother? Who'd dare mess with Death's private haunt?

* * *

Light from the rechargeable lantern entered the antechamber of the ancient tomb seconds before Logan did. He swept the light from one side to the other until he spotted his quarry: a tawny gem the size of his booted foot was nestled atop a stone pedestal. It was pretty much centered in the apparently otherwise empty room. Well, not counting the hieroglyphs (or whatever archeologists called such Indian relics) and broken pottery that had been near the entrance of the room.

Disgruntled, he huffed. With his enhanced senses, the light had done him more harm than good. Now that his night vision was ruined, he'd need the flares so he could use both hands to get the gem free of its setting before he destroyed it. In his blithe opinion, playing it the X-Men's Boy Scout ways wasted time. This was a perfect example of just such an occasion.

Standing a few feet away from his goal, he set the lantern on the sandy ground. He lit two flares and tossed them on either side of the pedestal's base. If he'd tossed them a little further out, he would've discovered the sinewy figure hiding in the oily dark recesses of the tomb. If he'd not lit them at all, he might have smelt his tomb-mate's stench, which was now overwhelmed by the burning magnesium and sulfur of the flare. Thoughts resembling these—though with no more prompting than his own instincts, experience, and well, impatience—provoked Logan to lose what remained of the mood to play it the Boy Scout way so he simply slashed the gem while it was still in its setting. With no reason to linger, he headed back the way he'd come, leaving the flares to burn off, but taking his lantern with him. If he wasn't in and out so fast, he might have noticed the familiarity of his tomb-mate's taint in the air before he got what he came for. Same probably could've been said about another scenario that had taken place three days ago too.

Death knew exactly what possessed him to approach his quarry early. In the dying light of Logan's discarded flares, the gem had glowed like dark honey in sunlight. It conjured recent memories. In the throws of ecstasy _(agony)_, _her_ voice had slathered him thick and syrupy as the most opulent of nectars.

_In another Apocalyptic time and place, someone else slid a different kind of gem upon her hand. It was small and cheap and imperfect, but still she gave him a son in return. _

He had hidden in the shadowed recesses of the room when he'd slipped inside ahead of Logan. He had watched as Logan stuck with the X-Men's careful directions before giving in to his own ways and simply smashed the gem to disable it full potential. If Logan had taken it whole, he would've had to make a move sooner, but as it was, Logan actually helped his own goals, so he was content to let the sometimes-feral man have his way. However, as he watched, he found impatience was contagious and so he was moving out of his hiding spot as soon as Logan had turned his back to leave. Silent, nimble, and grave, he matched his footfalls to Logan's. He should've at least waited until Logan was through the doorway and in the upward sloping tunnel, but his fingers twitched with the need to touch it, to touch _her_ again. Before Logan's lantern light had even completely abandoned the antechamber, Death palmed one of the broken shards of the innocuous looking gem.

_A little misdirection of Magneto's goals was all it would take _(had taken)_ for him to discover a way to touch her. To pursue and win her. It was _(would be)_ intolerable._

Death's jaw twitched in anticipation _(trepidation)_. Sure these memories were proof of her hold on him _(twenty-four seven)_, but they also gave him brilliant ideas for future torments. For that, he sometimes indulged the other resident of his body, Remy. Sometimes, he even stirred them up on purpose for the instant ache they bore.

_Magneto took up the mantel of Eric the Red to sabotage her esteem for me _(Remy)_. _ _He was so angry _(jealous) _when he forced her lips to mine _(Remy's)_. Bet it had galled him something fierce to see her stick by me _(Remy)_ for so long and then so readily with Joseph, his own clone, after she'd turned him down flat when they were leaving the Savage Land. Just goes to show how little he knew about her. Got to leave her room for excuses to play the feelings down or play them off as something else or she get scared off._

Distracted by the ebb-and-eddy of those hot-cold reflections, Death accidentally allowed his foot to crunch in the sand. Logan, only a mere few feet up the tunnel, however, did not overlook it. In the awful stillness following the miniscule noise that Death had made, the snikt of Logan's claws seemed downright cacophonous.

_Claws sprang from her hands. Logan had touched her once upon a time too._

Death tucked the gem shard into a pocket and he lifted his voice to carry. He cruelly jibed _(confessed)_, "Missin' Rogue?"

_Tears sprang from her eyes; there'd be no cure for her. Logan tucked her within the hairy, muscled lengths of his arms. A flannel blanket separated their skin but not their spirits. He'd touched her there too._

Logan stalked back into the antechamber and pierced Death with snarly eyes.

Touched a nerve, apparently.

_Her arms sprang around Logan's neck tight enough to grip the back of his head with one hand and stroke the sideburn on the opposite side of his face with the other. She returned his crushing kiss. Neither seemed to care they were ankle deep in the sewer sludge any more. Regardless of the excuse the Golgotha had given them, they'd touched each other that way too._

Death let his slow menacing grin fully form before he taunted, "She goin' t' kiss it and make it all better when I'm finished wit' y' here."

He had meant it to be a question. Why hadn't it come out as a question? The taunt wasn't right if it wasn't a question. It was Remy's twisted curiosity that had planted it in his head and he'd only permitted it to come out his mouth at all because of the potential torture the answer could cause _him_. Without a question, there'd be no chance of pain. He needed to know: if she were where she was supposed to be, would the grisly Canuck have welcomed a chance for her to play nurse? Would he have expected it even, despite his famed healing? Knowing those things is where the pain would reside. It didn't work if it wasn't a question. He gave away his own dealings too much if it wasn't a question.

Death steamed.

So did Logan. He growled. "Where is she?"

She'd been gone three days now. It wasn't enough. She was no holy ghost, just Death's victim _(redemption)_.

_Curls of cigar smoke had replaced those of her silky white-and-brown hair when he'd dragged his soggy self back onto the dock. "Hurt her again, Gumbo, and you deal with me."_

Death smiled grim and self-satisfied. "Not wit' y'."

Logan rushed him.

Death charged the air between them. As the mutant thief Gambit, his body would've excited the molecules of some inanimate object, turning their potential energy into kinetic energy and releasing a nice sized boom in the process. As Death, he transformed the typically inert air molecules into a dense, poisonous, billowy, white gas.

Logan leapt through it. He ferociously slashed the clear air. The empty air.

Death was gone.

Logan shredded the pedestal that had displayed the now-massacred giant gem. His brain finally caught up with his baser instincts and he stopped. Breath heaving, he used the simple task of sifting through the mess and collecting all the remaining pieces of the gem to pull himself together. He took a moment and inspected them.

He activated his communicator. "Hey, Hank. Bring down that sensor for this thing."

* * *

A jolt shot through him when she flinched at the slamming of the heavy door. Anger, despair, fear, guilt, whatever it was, it was thrilling. The tacky floor clung to the bottom of his boots as he quickened to her, but his fingers were more than willing to relinquish his gloves. He relished the tug that accompanied his greasy flesh-to-flesh grasp of her jaw. More than sight or sound or taste or scent, this singular sense of touch defined this woman's identity to him without compare. And he would punish her for it. He would punish her for so many things: the vulgar cling of Remy lingering inside his consciousness, his defeat at the hands of that amateur Gus, hindering his successes in the line of duty to Apocalypse, and so on. These things, yes. But, at the core of it, he punished her for her touch. How dare she have touched him so deeply!

So intimately.

And now there was so much more of him to swallow. More than she could take in mere moments. Hours. It took hours of punishment to reach that level of satisfaction anymore.

He kissed her as though he could drink her in as thoroughly as she did him. He tasted her. Stale, dry, metallic from old blood, the salt from his spent seed, and buried underneath it all, something hot and churned and summery. He smelled her—the acridness of her sweat, the sweat-metallic tang of her spilt blood, the ripe tart of her sex, and refusing to perish, those damned pungent milk-white blossoms and the banks of a mighty river after the floods have receded. He saw her—glassy green eyes glittering darkly like emeralds cut up by a million facets. He heard her—honey toned crawl, husky and breathy, panicked and faithful, rented and biting, clingy and shoving.

"Remy," she pleaded.

He backhanded her. He didn't want to listen to that from her. He gripped her jaw again, took a moment to relish the delicious pull that confirmed it was she he was punishing—and pinched open her mouth.

"Death," he insisted.

He shoved the large gem shard between those plump, chapped lips of hers. It clanked against her teeth, filling her there like he'd soon fill her otherwheres, and he knew he'd have to be careful that it didn't get wedged in there. It needed the freedom to flip and twist. It needed the room to gouge into her gums and slice her tongue. Blood and saliva dribbled down her chin. She may as well have licked a line straight to his—

He shuddered in rhythm of the quivering droplet that plummeted to her bare breast. It paused there momentarily and seemed wrong somehow. Atop the dried blood that was leftover from his last visit, it appeared a garnet. Wrong.

With a resentful sigh, he clamped a power nullifier on her so he could disconnect her from the adamantium latches on the wall and floor. Her body made that dumped-crawfish sound again when she sagged pitifully onto her side, but the muted clinks of the short adamantium chains that linked her wrist-to-wrist and ankle-to-ankle was louder. He grabbed the length between her wrists and dragged her into the bathroom. He lifted her by both lengths and dropped her into the tub. She sputtered when the cold water sprayed her face from the showerhead. The gem shard tumbled out, dropped to her chest, bounced from one breast to the other, and then plopped into the basin. He didn't bother plucking it out. It was much too large to go down the drain. He did, however, specifically adjust the angle of the icy water so it kept her sputtering as he cleaned the dried blood away. Once her flesh was a creamy white only a few shades darker than those stripes in her hair, once she was shivering enough that he could convince _him_ of her fear, he returned her to her rightful place in the main room, the bedroom: chained for his pleasure, stretched taught between ceiling and floor.

He can't help but kiss her again, a false brief show of tenderness that still managed to raise futile hope in her, before he shoved that large, sharp gem shard into her mouth and sealed it shut with duct tape. He wrapped it around her face and head three times even though he preferred to have her hair loose so he could wound it around his fingers for a better grip and yank her head back _(bask in their satiny texture)_, but he knew she still had too much fight in her for less than that. As it was, he suspected she could use that stolen strength to eventually work her mouth free of the tape and, shortly thereafter, the gem if she so wanted. It was a new treat _(torment)_, and he was excited to discover how the scenario would play out.

He almost sat on the bed to wait as the gem wove its magic through her, but he couldn't seem to budge. His eyes hungrily lapped up the fading of every bruise, bump and scrape. A thrill of some kind ran through him when the last of the deeper cuts closed. Whether it was joy or anger, relief or disappointment, he didn't know or care. All that mattered was that he liked it.

He took off the power nullifier and started the timer. He had a goal of two hours and fifteen minutes. He couldn't wait to see how long he would last.

He rested his oil-black forehead to hers and stared at her eyes as they swam into mirrors of his counterpart's.

"No more emeralds," Death whispered.

They continued to transform and he held his breath as he watched.

"No burning embers, eit'er."

When they matched his own—shiny, like big maraschino cherries—a slow, drugged smile settled into place.

"Give us de light, petite. Me, de ashes, mais first…"

He held up one of his throwing spikes close enough for both of them to see without moving their heads. He pressed the tip into her cheek and removed it. He watched the blood ooze up into a tiny, trembling swell that reminded him of a single, juicy bulb in a whole raspberry. Again and again he did it, dotting her face with the bittersweet fruits of his labors.

"Dere we go, chère," Death said reassuringly. "Rubies for Remy."

Next, he pierced her breasts. Over and over again, just like on her cheeks, but worse, as though the more forbidden the flesh, the more it needed to be spoiled. Dozens of plump, shiny red droplets welled to rest upon her creamy white skin. He dipped his head down and licked them off one by one before her muted struggles lolled them over her uncharitable curves.

"Ah," he moaned generously. Grinning, he met her watery, cherry eyes and exclaimed, "Only de most exquisite of pains for our Remy."

He greatly anticipated sinking lower. It took every last ounce of his self-control to pace himself because even just the thought of it nearly had him brimming that bright and shiny edge of ecstasy _(agony)_.

He glanced at the timer. One hour, forty-three minutes remained. He would do this. He would last.

One day, he'd even give as good as he got. Twenty-four, seven.

He dug the point of the spike along the under curve of her left breast and she grunted around the sharp gem shard, muffled behind the still binding duct-tape.

A familiar ache curled tight in his chest. Remy had finally reared up. His stamina was growing as well. Or rather, his resistance.

Oh, yes. One day, even he'd give as good as he got.

* * *

"Did the pedestal threaten you?" Hank asked cordially as he entered the tomb and saw the remains of Logan's supposedly simple mission. All he had to do was procure and then destroy the gem, preferably in that order. Something had obviously disrupted that.

Logan grimaced and Hank immediately lost his jovial mood. "What happened?"

"Ex-Cajun happened," Logan said, "And I think he's got Rogue."

"Rogue?" Hank asked, genuinely confused. Wouldn't that mean… "She's missing?"

"Three days, now," Logan said. He handed Beast one of the broken chunks of the gem. "This the real thing?"

Hank touched it to the portable Shi'ar scanner that Forge had adapted for this very purpose. While it analyzed, Hank asked, "Might I inquire as to why this is news to me?"

"News to everyone," Logan said, "Except me."

Hank merely lifted a curious brow.

"Thought she was letting off steam, so I covered for her." Logan grunted uncomfortably. He couldn't help but remember the scene before she had left, how he'd confronted her after she'd so nonchalantly excused herself when they'd finished debriefing Sunfire, who'd arrived mostly free of Apocalypse's pollution, and alone. He chewed over his choices of explanations, but then settled for simply stating; "Planned on going after her if she didn't check in after a week."

Hank's curiosity only grew at that, but then the scan completed, smartly thwarting his cursory urge to pry into the oft-feral mutant's characteristic brevity of words. "It's positive."

"Think we could use it to find the rest of the pieces?"

Hank thought a moment. "Perhaps…" He flipped through some of the settings. "I think so. It won't be terribly quick—" He cut himself off and looked to Logan, who looked decidedly grumpy. "Which concerns you more: quality or quantity?"

"Quantity," Logan answered quickly. "For now. Worry about the other part after we get back."

Excited by the new challenge, Hank immediately started reprogramming the device. "Since I don't need to confirm the purity of each piece, just merely recognize similarity, I believe I can—"

"Speed it up," Logan finished with him, though Logan's was said in impatience.

"Ah, yes," Hank said abashed. "My apologies for my misplaced enthusiasms. Do you think Apocalypse's designs for these gems include Rogue somehow?"

"Nah," Logan huffed. "It'd be pretty abrupt, don't ya think? He never had an eye on her before."

Hank pondered that a moment. "She went after Gambit by herself, then?" He pursued.

"More like," Logan admitted. He tossed and caught one of the gem shards, over and over again, as he worked it out for himself. Whatever direction his thoughts took, he didn't bother to voice any of it.

Hank tracked and collected a few more pieces then met Logan's distanced expression, "Perhaps you should relay your suspicions regarding Rogue to the others while I finish this?"

Logan grunted and headed towards the exit.

"Logan," Hank called before he had turned up the hallway. "Don't get sidetracked trying to track him. We'll be more effective as a group."

"Sure," Logan said before disappearing from view.

* * *

He nipped behind her ear.

She thrashed as forcefully as her bindings would permit, which wasn't much, as she tried to buck him off as thoroughly as she continued thowing off the splatters of liquid rubies that scattered about them on the walls, the ceiling, the bed, and the now slippery hardwood floor.

"Never abstained for long," Death whispered harshly. He pressed full length against her.

Almost there. They neared that pure white glowing edge and would soon burst over it and coat them with glittering, heavenly stardust. Almost there.

He gripped the chains linking her wrists and held on. "Not even in Valle Soleada."

There.

The pure bright light of redemption erupted and Remy surfaced.

"Chère!?" Remy gasped.

He took her all in, though less thoroughly than she had taken in him. Her hair was ashen, her skin inky, and all of it slicked with _her_ ruby red blood and _his_ salty opaque hate. He jerked away, slipped and clattered to the floor. The briefest, most desperate movement of her fingers drew his agonized _(triumphant) _gaze upwards, to the fuchsia sparkle of the chains linking her wrists as she scrabbled to remove the charge he'd given them when he'd been shoved to the forefront.

She sagged when it was gone, reabsorbed using the very talents she'd drawn in through their cruelly contacting skin.

She shook with ragged sobs, quiet behind her gag.

Remy scrambled to his feet, to her. His fingers trembled as they sought purchase around the blood-slippery tape helping to gag her. He didn't dare speak for what could he say? What apology could dare attempt comfort or redemption? Frustrated, he snatched a throwing dart out of a pocket of his coat to cut the tape. The look her wholly red-glazed orbs gave him as he lifted it into her view…

He dropped it and ran for the toilet. He slipped and fell twice on the way, a third time knocked his knees and hips, clanging, into the side of the bathtub. His blood-dampened coat hissed to a slapping stop against the tiled floor, bathtub, toilet, and his own clammy, oil slick flesh.

He half expected black sludge to come out of him as he vomited, but all that had splashed into the bowl was coffee, shrimp, bile and… Rogue's blood.

Death chuckled darkly in the corners of Remy's mind. "Dat enough contrition yet, mon ami?"

Remy flicked himself off in the mirror as he rinsed his mouth in the sink.

"Didn't t'ink so," Death said as he surged forward and in complete _(sure)_ control once more.

Irrelevant now, the alarm on the timer buzzed. The goal had obviously not been achieved.

* * *

_Thank you for reading. Please review.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **My apologies for not replying individually to those who so graciously leave reviews or add me to their alerts or favorites. I have my reasons for withholding, reasons I won't go into here, publicly, but I hope you will forgive me and continue to read and comment. Each and every one of them mean a great deal to me—even the criticisms, which often get me off my bum so I can get it better next time. Thank you.

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**Chapter Two**

Tile gleamed in the flickering candlelight. The bathroom was spotless. No evidence of torture or sickness remained. Lulling, sensual jazz played on a small portable cd player that rested on the counter beside the sink. Its cord stretched carefully from it to the wall nearby, carefully out of reach of the danger of water. Everything about the room, the moment, was supposed to soothe, to relax, to comfort. Death understood that there could be great cruelty in the midst of inappropriate tenderness.

Vanilla. The decadent, yet innocent scent permeated the air, the water, and most especially her skin and hair. The candles wafted the fragrance in wispy tendrils of smoke. The bubble bath frothed the water with it. The shampoo and conditioner he'd used to lather and rinse, and detangle and rinse, added another dose of the rich, succulent smell. Deliberately coordinated lotion would come later too, but for now, he carefully caressed away the dried blood and flaky love from her shapely torso and lithe limbs.

Much as she tried not to, Rogue half-dozed in the warmth of the bath, the rolling rhythms of the music, the pale golden glow of the candles, the moist, sweetness of the air, and even the silky strokes of the washcloth—as sensual as the buttery, praline crawl of his voice. With her eyes closed, she could almost pretend that things were different; that Remy hadn't raised the adamantium tipped dart with the same graceful pinch of fingers as his alternate had; that she hadn't believed the confessions given, hadn't already suspected them, and in some cases, already had the memories of them stored inside her as if they were her own; that her wrists and ankles weren't bound by adamantium chains; that her body hadn't ached in ways that should have been reserved for happy morning-afters; that the gem wasn't double-edged as a lemon, sharp and sour as biting the inside of her cheek while chewing her favorite food, yet stringent and cleansing as the healing sunshine; and almost pretend that she had the strength of will and the forgiving goodness to avoid holding a grudge when all was said and done. Almost pretend.

"Remy may be de t'ief, chère," Death said in the oozing quiet tones usually reserved for post-coitus, sleepy children, or the dying, "Mais, I t'ink I stole dis from him."

What stung the worst was the humble sincerity braided into his prideful satisfaction. He believed it. Believed that every soothing moment, future or past, little there had been or would be, shared with Remy would now be usurped by the memory of that very moment with Death. She was adamant that he'd be wrong on this account. She was not a novice with this type of survival.

For all that Death shared Remy's knowledge of her, neither knew that she'd been broken before from baseline torture. Once, long ago, the amateurish fumblings of Genoshan soldiers sent her cowering deep into her own mindscape, allowing Carol to surge forward and take control. She had survived their inexpert torments and rescued Logan in the process. Well, Carol was the heroine in that escapade, but then, if it wasn't for Rogue's powers—loathe them as she so often did—the succeeding option wouldn't have been available. So, in a round about way, Rogue had a role in it. She sometimes leaned on that when she was in the mood to feel optimistic about her stake in life. Sometimes, her by-proxy powers had been the thing that allowed her to save those she cared for. Sometimes, that idea had actually lightened the burden of the minds that had come with them. Sometimes, it even aerated the guilt. Sometimes.

Regardless, she had suffered torture by the Genoshan hands, mild as they were in comparison to the bittersweet skills of Remy's incarnation as Death, and survived. Sure, because of it, she was halved, forced into time-sharing her own body, but she endured. The resulting Carol/Rogue tug-of-wars following the Genoshan prison later ended not on her own doing, but from the intrusion of another, one who thought _she_ was worth it, one who had been determined to prove _her_ own worth to _her_: Magneto. Those days and nights had stayed with her. It was why she so often felt compelled to try and return the favor to him when he went all cockeyed with schemes of world (or Genoshan) domination. It was why she couldn't help but feel a steady, heady warmth in the center of her chest and the lower depths of her abdomen when he looked at her a certain way. He reminded her of such normal (for most) possibilities, for he had been the first one who showed her that there were _reasons_ someone would risk so much for her esteem and affection… for her companionship. It helped her hold on to hope sometimes. Sometimes.

She was grateful to Erik for giving her that. She owed him for it, to an extent. Most of all, she respected him and appreciated him and felt continual affection towards him for it. He opened pathways for her by reaffirming a brighter, hopeful, even somewhat expectant perspective on having romantic love in her life. If not for Erik's persistence back then, those doors may likely have been closed, iron-clad, double-barred, welded, against such possibilities. Against Remy. Persistent as Remy was, if he had been the first, he would've probably found himself in Erik's place in her esteem instead.

Second place had a more realistic chance at survival than the flashiness of first place had.

In a way, Remy was lucky that Erik had burrowed so significantly into her first. Erik had paved the way for him. But, if second place had higher chances, what would third place have? No, no, Rogue wasn't a third place kind of girl. She would only sink so low. And Remy, well, he wasn't one to stand for taking second place. He'd been bound and determined to be on top. What was the point of taking on a challenge, if he didn't get the grand prize, after all? He felt the need to take that number one spot, to warily keep an eye on her other affections. She supposed he may never understand the importance of them, how they enabled his chances with her, and she would just have to live with that. He would just have to live with that. She was her own person. Even now.

But Erik… Magneto… he didn't just lie down and lose either. Which was why he had gotten through to her in the first place.

That type of determination was also why, despite all her better judgments, she held on to Remy, held on _for_ Remy, survived these indignities and pains Death inflicted upon her. More than Erik before him, Remy excited those tiny shards of hopeful expectation that someone would stick it out, excited them as much as he charged her hormones, as much as he changed potential kinetic energy into actual kinetic energy with his powers. And even then, she was cautious. She wouldn't go easily. It took an adrenaline-junkie, a thrill seeker, a risk taker, a gambler, and a thief of her heart. Imagine her luck, these qualities just happened to be wrapped up so nicely in lean cords of muscles, tanned planes of skin, a smoky breath-hitching drawl, crooked smirk, and smoldering come-hither gaze. Her libido too often betrayed those last vestiges of caution, wearing her down. Sometimes.

Other times it was purely that _she_ _wanted_ _Remy_. Screw the morality of such a man. Screw the longevity statistics. Screw her sanity, his sanity, his ex-wife, Mystique's plans, Candra's tithes, one-eye's clenching sphincter, Sinister's meddling, Logan's growling, the Guild's prophecies, Professor's promises… Screw all the risks. She simply wanted Remy. Now. And perhaps, until she died.

She'd never wanted like that before.

Untrue. Fleeting fractions of seconds, come and gone, and likely to come again, she'd wanted Erik. First place had its merits, after all. Besides, he'd done more than just open her up for romantic paths. He'd also obtained her esteem for him in other plainer, and maybe even more secure ways. Oddly, these ways worked against him more than they had worked for him. Magneto's influence in the Savage Land had done more to bind her to the X-Men than the Professor had ever done. Magneto hadn't dangled the prize of control before her. He dangled her self-respect and self-worth and self-esteem instead. Not just dangled, but worked for it, and eventually (though she'd probably never admit this out loud to him or anyone) uplifted her. He had made sure she could not misconstrue that it was a serious goal of his. In doing so, he became Erik to her more than Magneto. And Erik had successfully proven to her that she could belong to a family, mishmash as they may be, a group of unlikely associates linked by shared needs, shared purpose, and the intense and formidable will to persevere, together. When Erik's lesson had finally hammered home, it had been the X-Men that had filled her vision in a rush of giddy hope and cozy hearth fire. Much as Erik was probably loathed to realize it. That much was obvious in their clumsy, head-butting interactions that followed the Savage Land. Persuade, convert, recruit. Her to his side. He to hers. A spring-loaded cycle without an end in sight. Erik could say otherwise as much as he'd like. Put them alone together, hell, not even alone, and those push-pull sparks went a-flying. Passion wrought and welded in stubbornness and futility.

Another time and place, perhaps, though…

But this was here and now, and for the foreseeable future. Erik had accomplished his pursuit and purpose with her too well in that short, steamy time. She had thought herself tough and resilient before, but he made her face her self-consciousness, her self-doubt, her self-worth, all those things she'd thought she'd shoved to the back of her thoughts. What he cultivated in her had been one of the last nails in her coffin in giving her the means to stick it out with the X-Men on her own. To stick it out, as abrasive and jarring and scary and exhilarating and cozy as it may be, with Remy. For Remy. On her own.

Erik had failed to gain her blind, appreciative loyalty when he succeeded in making her more whole. His plans had backfired on him.

And then Remy had crumbled her. He chipped away at all her hard-won resilient resignation. The man sure had stamina. Sometimes she believed she'd crumbled him as well. She sure gave him a chase. Splintered and shattered by each other and outer facets of their lives, they both had picked up their pieces and glued themselves back together. Sometimes together. Sometimes on their own. Sometimes, bits of the other got mixed in with their own, binding them in ways they were both scared and urgent for. Sometimes they rued the next cycle of it. Sometimes they thrilled for it. Sometimes they just meandered. Funny how that sometimes was stretching into years, now.

In the interim, sometimes had become immeasurably important.

Erik had recognized it and loathed it. Whether it was jealousy, arrogance, the loss of the efforts he'd once put into Rogue, his frustration in his adversaries, or something else altogether, he'd seen it in them and did his worst to break them apart beyond repair. He could claim any excuse he wanted to, but Rogue was convinced, Antarctica had been personal. She pitied him for it. She mourned the tiniest dulling of their shared sparks that had resulted from it. But mostly, she had finally owed Remy in return. She'd found a sick equality in owing him. It was suddenly okay to want him.

And she wanted him to love her, to be hers, with no ambiguity or slyness in the admission. Just say it and do it. Give the playful banter a foundation to build upon.

But now she owed him…

She'd thought she'd paid that debt after Vargas, found a healthier balance of equality, when she'd pulled him from the brink of death. But now, now she faced the real debt, the real need to save him from Death. She had to save him from his own worst opinions of himself. Just like he'd tried so many times to do for her. He'd exposed what remained of her walls, made her war with herself, illuminated those remaining scratches of shaky self-worth that had surfaced when she found herself wanting and fearing.

Torture, the attempt to break her down and rebuild her to another's purposes… this was a playing field she had tenure in.

Mystique had failed with her psychotic, unhealthy, and genuine-in-her-own-creepy-way mothering. Xavier had failed with his fight-for-the-greater-good while never advancing solutions to her dilemmas. The Genoshans' had failed with their blunt and superficial fumblings. Erik had failed with his proud, circumspective, patient, and penetrating conversions. Hundreds of displaced personas had failed with their inside-out wittlings, haranguing, usurpings, and by-proxy power buzzings. And Death, with his corrosive application of Remy's nimble fingers, molasses drawl, boring gaze, searing sensuality, and simmering, undulating, hesitant, self-conscious tenderness, would fail to warp her too.

She would survive.

She would sift Remy out of Death's greasy clutches and into her sticky, hiccupping embrace. She was determined. She had to be. She. Wanted. Remy.

Remy would thrive.

Screw faith and fate and win or lose and love and loss and chance and luck and gambling. Hearts. Diamonds. Clubs. Spades. She wanted out the other side. She wanted Remy.

These were her musing mantras that kept her face soft, her flesh pliable, and her will adamant from moment to moment since she first set foot in Death's chambers. She sank into them slowly and was often jolted out of them.

Splash.

She heard the water slosh as Death dipped the plush cloth into the bubbly water and drew it out again. Jaws clamped tight, she curled away from the movement, lest he brush some intimate part of her beneath the soapy surface. _As if it could get more personal, _she snorted in her own thoughts_._ He sighed contentedly at the show and she suppressed a shiver. She suspected (hoped) that he misunderstood the reasons for both. When he gently grasped her ankle above the cuff and lifted it, she wished she'd had the strength to kick out at him. But, with the suppressor around her neck, the weight of the chains, the hours of torture, the three days of brief, fitful sleeps (and the knowledge that Remy, twisted up Remy, could possibly, remotely, but possibly, be the gross recipient of her efforts), she just didn't have it in her to shove out of Death's grasp let alone physically strike out at him. But, she wrangled with the idea of it over and over again in her mind. When the time was right to do so, she would be more than ready. _Let him have his way for now_, she reasoned to herself stubbornly, _let him get confident and clumsy with it._

He draped the cloth on her lower leg and languorously slid it up along her calf, her knee, her thigh, and her hip. There he trailed it in a circle before delicately tracing back down the way he had come. He took particular care with the circlet of skin at her ankle because the cuff was slowly rubbing it raw. He had done the same with her wrists.

"De pain," Death continued in that secluded tone, "Dat be like childbirt', in a way. You can forget it, after awhile." He'd deliberately thinned Remy's accent the littlest bit, as if it proved his distinction, his imminent success in this particular pinch against his rival. "Women got de knack for it built right into dem. Mais you," he tapped her temple, signifying the tensile durability of her to store all those foreign personas, "You got it extra."

He lifted her leg higher.

"People assume your fragile wit' dem. Weakened. A fault in your powers."

He repeated the languorous stroke on the underside.

"Dey be wrong."

Her inner calf.

"It's a testament of your strength."

Her inner knee.

"It take subtlety to subdue."

Her inner thigh.

"I get it."

A few inches from her junction, he circled, careful of her privacy and dignity in his nurturing _(sadistic)_ ministrations, and slid down again.

"Mais dis, dis," he cooed, lavishing the moment for himself, "Dis will stay wit' you."

He utterly believed it. And so, for now, she let him. She told herself so.

He set the cloth aside so he could gently take hold of her by her shoulders. One hand dipped into the water and passed her crossed arms to wiggle a grasp of her on that side. The other hand grasped the shoulder that peaked up over the peaks of the bubbles. With patient tenderness, he turned her towards him. Midway, he paused, and almost like he couldn't resist, he glided an arm around behind her back. He cupped her cheek affectionately with his other, now freed, hand.

"Dis he won't forgive," he said as he pressed the softest of kisses to her forehead, "Especially, not if y' forgive it."

She had forgotten his charm. His empathic abilities were practically a mutation on their own.

He feathered his lips against her left eyelid.

"It's not his way. Not when he's bound and determined to suffer for it."

Feathered her other eyelid.

"An' he's sure of it for dis, because it's his idea, his compulsion, his desire to take care of you and put you to rights."

She shivered involuntarily. She caught it and reset her jaw in grim determination to rally against it.

He kissed her nose.

"And so I indulge it, 'cause in de end, dis compassion, dis affection, dis is de sumptuous discrimination dat will damage de most."

He pressed her to his chest and spoke the last against her slick, vanilla scented, striped hair.

"It will blend and congeal—he and I, pain and pleasure, love and hate, atrocity and redemption."

He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly.

"It will linger. For him."

She bit her lip.

He went silent while he resettled her in the tub to cleanse and caress her other leg with just the same attention he had on the first. He stayed silent as he pulled the plug to allow the water to drain away. He watched as it tugged on her skin, pulling at her, loosening her muscles underneath. If she'd opened her eyes to face him she would've noticed the inquisitive, measuring and appreciative gaze he leveled on her as he watched it. She would've wondered if he imagined that the sensation of the cloying, dragging, haul of the emptying water was as close to experiencing her own powers as she would ever get. But she didn't, so she didn't. Yet, he still did.

When all that remained was thick, stalking puffs of soapsuds, he turned the faucet on again. He caught the plunging water in a large cup _(small bucket)_ and poured it over her, rinsing the last vestiges of scum and soap off of her.

"Y' should rest," he said, sinking back into Remy's thick, praline drawl, as he toweled her off. It was a longer process than he had originally expected since he had to hold her uncooperative body upright, half-leaning against him as if she were still pretending, disassociating, as he patted her creamy skin dry. After that, he swathed on the purposefully chosen moisturizer, expensive, luxurious and, of course, as deliciously planned, vanilla scented. It wasn't what she would have chosen for herself, least of all from _him_, after all.

Finally, he took a fresh towel to her hair until it was fluffy. Then he combed it tangle free and smooth.

He tucked her into the bed, between sheets of silk, beneath a quilted duvet stuffed with down. He plumped the pillow for her head. It would've been the picture of serene comfort if not for the adamantium chains that linked her wrists before connecting her to the wall at her head and the floor at her feet; there were several latch points he'd bore into the foundation supports throughout the room. He'd slipped the chains—_clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink_—between the curvy brass rails of the headboard and footboard to do so.

"I envy you, I t'ink," he told her as he gazed upon her in complicated adoration, "You have more influence over him dan you believe. More dan I have over him, more dan Poccy, or Essex, Scooter or Stormy. Hmm, Stormy." He simmered on that a bit before continuing, "Even more dan he has over himself sometimes."

He double-checked that the suppressor was active. He tucked the gem under her pillow. He left.

Rogue worked her jaw. It was cramped from keeping it clamped shut, both around that vicious gem as well as her whiplash tongue. The things she'd almost told him… For as much as she was able, she had kept her whimpering pleas and scathing exclamations all to herself. Sometimes she slipped, and she berated herself afterwards each and every time, but for the most of it, she'd kept her resolve. She refused to give _him_ the benefit. The satisfaction.

Her stomach grumbled.

On the other hand, she might just have to voice her opinion on that topic when he came back. She had every intention of coming out the other side of this whole and with Remy intact, after all. Starvation would impede that plan. Just a smidge.

* * *

_Thank you for reading. Please review.  
_

Posted February 28, 2009.


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